Posted inInformation Technology / Investing

Windows 8 – Vista Part Deux

seasoned_geek by seasoned_geek

It is difficult for me to not pick up the phone these days and make an “I told you so” call to a past client. This guy was absolutely baptized by Microsoft. We were developing some software on Linux and I cannot tell you the number of times I heard “this would take me 15 minutes in DOT NET.” Naturally I responded “it would run on only one machine, yours, the last Windows user in the world.”

 He used to tell me that Microsoft had hired all of these Unix/Linux gurus and that Windows 8 was going to be a Unix kernel sold by Microsoft which would come fully loaded, sell for $25, and take over the world. I used to laugh. As a desktop I use Linux. For real computing I use OpenVMS because there is no substitute for quality. If it is business it needs a business class OS, not OpenSource.

 At any rate, Windows 8 has been out for a while. I heard on NPR the other morning that the head of Windows software and hardware left the company rather suddenly without much in the way of explanation. I’m not surprised. I have yet to suffer Windows 8, but I have watched numerous people buy a new computer with Windows 8 on it and either take the computer back or wipe it completely and install something else.

 Personally, I don’t think we will get a massive bug fix packaged as a new OS ala Windows 7 for Vista. Those new tablets with click on keyboards which look like some kind of concentration camp torture device for speed typists are going to be on the shelf in some museum next to Zune, Microsoft Bob, and a host of other truly tragic adventures.

 One must really thank Microsoft for releasing Windows 8 though. Like Vista before it, Windows 8 has driven more people to Linux than any marketing effort ever could. I can’t wait to see how many leave when Windows 9 comes out!

Roland Hughes started his IT career in the early 1980s. He quickly became a consultant and president of Logikal Solutions, a software consulting firm specializing in OpenVMS application and C++/Qt touchscreen/embedded Linux development. Early in his career he became involved in what is now called cross platform development. Given the dearth of useful books on the subject he ventured into the world of professional author in 1995 writing the first of the "Zinc It!" book series for John Gordon Burke Publisher, Inc.

A decade later he released a massive (nearly 800 pages) tome "The Minimum You Need to Know to Be an OpenVMS Application Developer" which tried to encapsulate the essential skills gained over what was nearly a 20 year career at that point. From there "The Minimum You Need to Know" book series was born.

Three years later he wrote his first novel "Infinite Exposure" which got much notice from people involved in the banking and financial security worlds. Some of the attacks predicted in that book have since come to pass. While it was not originally intended to be a trilogy, it became the first book of "The Earth That Was" trilogy:
Infinite Exposure
Lesedi - The Greatest Lie Ever Told
John Smith - Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars

When he is not consulting Roland Hughes posts about technology and sometimes politics on his blog. He also has regularly scheduled Sunday posts appearing on the Interesting Authors blog.